Chapter 4

A week has passed and Maria didn't want to leave home. All her tutors went there instead of LME. They were paid enough to not care where they taught her whether it happens at home, at LME or at a coffee shop.

Yet Lory grew more and more concerned at Maria's recent lack of enthusiasm. He bought her things, treated her with her favorite foods and tried to do things that would normally make her happy.

Finally after a long day, he knocked at her door and opened it slightly. Maria was sitting on the window seat, staring out the darkened window while holding on to her favorite stuff rabbit. It was a stuffed animal that her mother had given to her and while she loved the Ren doll Kyoko gave her, she still held that one close to her heart.

Lory sat down next to her but didn't opt to talk. She was dressed up in a frilly white and pink nightgown with her little toes peaking from under the cloth. Her hair was freed from its ribbons and pins and she looked like a lost innocent little girl he knew and loved.

He sat with her and waited quietly. He looked out the window, his eyes glancing at her every now and again, seeing if he could see a change in her. She started to fidget slightly, her feet shuffled and then she hugged the rabbit tighter a few moments later. He heard her sob softly and he turned his full attention to her. He lifted his hand and touched her cheek softly. She flew into her grandfather's arms and cried.

"Shhh, It's okay," Lory gently patted her head, stroked her hair and rocked her till she stopped. She pulled away but stayed within the comforting warmth of his arms.

"Are you ready to talk? What's wrong, Maria?" He asked calmly and then waited. Maria rested her head on his chest and he held her.

"Did you know?" She whispered inaudibly.

"I can't hear you." He pulled back and looked at her blotchy face.

"Did you know that they love each other?" She asked again.

"Who?" He wasn't thinking about anyone except her at the moment. She pressed her lips together. She didn't want to say it so instead she pointed to the doll that sat next to her bed. Lory followed her arm down to her hand to where it was pointing.

"Ah." He took her outstretched hand and held it gently. "Ren still loves you. He won't change his feelings for you just because he is in love with someone else."

"How can he love me and onee-sama?" She asked confused.

"You can love multiple people at the same time. I love you and I love your daddy. I loved your mommy and my lost wife." He stopped and looked at her. She didn't seem convinced.

"Do you love me?" He asked and she nodded.

"Do you love your daddy and mommy?" Again she nodded.

"Do you love Kyoko-chan?" She nodded softer this time.

"And you love Ren. You love all these people, right?"

"Yes," she said softly.

"See. A person can love lots of different people at the same time." Lory smiled and Maria sat thinking about it. As it mature in her head she returned a soft smile back at him.

"So does that mean I can still marry Ren-sama when I get older?"

Lory snorted. "Well, he can only marry one person, but you might with the way things are going right now," he said with a slight frustration.

"What do you mean?" She frowned at him confused.

He smiled gently and leaned back against her window sill. He hugged her comfortably in his arms, as if he was going to tell a story. "Well you see, Ren has loved your big sister for a long time now. In fact, he has known and loved her since before you were born."

Her eyes widened in shock. "Really?"

He nodded. "Yup. They met when he was 10 and she was 6…" Lory relayed what he knew of their past. He told the story like it was a tragic fairy tale from the moment they met with her wicked mother, to her heartbreak and then Ren's goals of being like his father. He wove a story about their shared brief moments of love to their fated reunion, of the fear and the love that will conquer everything.

Okay so he smudged a lot of details while he recited it. He didn't mention anything about his troubled past only that he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps by starting like he did - in Japan, nor that Tsuruga Ren wasn't his real name.

And with Kyoko, he made it sound like she was Cinderella, always unloved when her father disappeared and always underappreciated by her mother and then by Fuwa. It didn't take Lory long to get the whole story after Kyoko was reluctant to contact her mother. He was furious at how a woman can value her own life more than her daughter's, to practically sell her off to a family for their spoiled son to marry. Then there was Fuwa Sho. If he had that boy in his agency, there would have been hell to pay.

By the time Lory told his elaborated, semi truthful story, Maria was so enraptured by it she had forgotten her own heartbreak.

"…and every day he tries to tell her how he feels but the hurt and fear in her heart doesn't let her see it. While the fear in his heart of losing her doesn't let him go further than the little things you saw. " Lory stopped and watched her. She waited impatiently in his lap for the rest of the story, however, he didn't continue.

"That's it? Where is the rest? They are supposed to get together. Like, 'But then one day, it happens because of something and they live happily ever after,'" Maria whined and he laughed.

"Well that hasn't happened yet. Kyoko is still fighting her pain and Ren is still waiting and both don't know about each other's feelings." And Ren is still fighting his own demons. That stupid boy can't move on from his one mistake as if it defined his whole sense of self. Doesn't that boy know that he has changed, that he could never…

"…tell them?" Maria interrupted his thoughts but only heard the last two words. Still it was enough for him to assume what she was asking.

He sighed. "Anyone can try but it won't work all the time. Some people won't believe it unless it is that person that tells them. If her best friend told her that he loved her, she would think that she is saying it to make her feel better about her feelings or in Kyoko's case simply to tease her. It has to be from him for it to mean anything. As for Ren, he will believe you are being mean and want proof of her love. So it has to come from her for him to believe it."

Maria growled, "That is so fussterateing." Lory smiled at her mispronunciation of frustrating. She continued, "If, after eleven years?" She paused and looked at him for confirmation. He nodded.

"If, after eleven years has passed and there is still nothing, then we will probably have to wait another eleven years to see them together."

Lory laughed. "I hope they don't wait that long. I'm trying to help them get to say their feelings a lot sooner."

Maria looked up at him with a blank look and asked, "You can do that? But I thought you said it has to be from them?"

"Oh it does, but if you make them do things that forces them together for long periods of time, sometimes their feelings will show and it's happening more and more like you saw. Soon they will be put somewhere where they have to tell each other their feelings and we will get that happily ever after." Lory's eyes sparkled at the prospect of love and seeing his two children getting together after all their woes.

Maria was consumed by her own thoughts and ignored her grandfather slipping out of reality. She bet that the things that Grandfather used were so fancy that they didn't know what was really happening.

She would have to take this into her own hands. A real, down to earth person like herself could get them together more than her weird grandfather.